= Amara =
“They… split,” I murmured before I even realized the words had left my lips, soft, almost swallowed by the wind.
Rovan’s head turned toward me, his eyes briefly catching mine before drifting back to the ground. He studied the earth with that slow, deliberate focus of someone who measured everything by instinct and experience. Finally, he nodded once, crisp, precise.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s our assessment. A classic confusion tactic—meant to scatter pursuit, to force us to guess which path to follow.”
I didn’t answer. Words felt inadequate, irrelevant even, compared to the pull tightening inside me, dragging my attention away from strategy and analysis and straight toward the trail. The voices of the others—Rovan’s steady, low commentary, the murmur of the scouts behind me—sli
